At a value of EUR294 million, the Polish venture capital market showed an eight times increase in 2019, according to a report by PFR Ventures.
The data, prepared in cooperation with Inovo Venture Partners, reveals that 269 transactions took place in 2019 with 85 funds involved. They provided capital worth over EUR294 million invested by domestic and foreign funds in Polish startups.
At a value of EUR294 million, the Polish venture capital market showed an eight times increase in 2019, according to a report by PFR Ventures.
The data, prepared in cooperation with Inovo Venture Partners, reveals that 269 transactions took place in 2019 with 85 funds involved. They provided capital worth over EUR294 million invested by domestic and foreign funds in Polish startups.
This means that last year set a resounding new record for the Polish venture capital VC market. Compared to 2018, the value of investments increased eight times. Co-investments of Polish and international VC funds accounted for more than 25 per cent of all transactions.
The significant rounds raised by DocPlanner (EUR80 million), Brainly (EUR27 million), and booksy (EUR26 million), in particular, added to the hike in value.
“For the first time in 10 years, a vast increase was observed in the capital invested by Polish funds and the funding provided to Polish entrepreneurs by foreign teams. Public sector money played a significant role – it encouraged the involvement of private investors,” said Aleksander Mokrzycki, vice-president of PFR Ventures.
A majority of the funds invested in Poland (75 per cent) constituted private capital, while the participation of international funds in the transactions was more than 60 per cent.
Out of these 269 transactions, 225 were based on public capital, while 251 transactions were conducted by Polish teams. The most active international funds included Enern, Finch Capital, Speedinvest and Sunfish Partners.
Tomasz Swieboda, partner at Inovo Venture Partners, commented: “Growing interest of major foreign funds, the presence of several rounds of more than PLN 100 million (around EUR25 million), the emergence of new entities and further fundraising of the existing funds are only some of the factors that drive the good results. We are very pleased with this rapid growth of the Polish ecosystem, especially that as Inovo Venture Partners, we are still at the initial stage of the investment process of our second fund.”
In 2019, the share of VC transactions in Poland’s GDP rose from 0.006 per cent to 0.048 per cent, getting closer to the European average for 2018 of 0.049 per cent.
“The growth shows that there are now a lot of funds available for startups in Poland. We assume that in 2020 we may note a small decrease in total transaction value compared to 2019,” said Aleksander Mokrzycki, COO/CFO PFR Ventures.
“However, the amount of capital invested should still be much higher than in any year before 2019. We see many international VCs active in CEE region – they are attracted by the potential of the market that has just started to rise,” added Mokrzycki.
